Celebrating 8 Years!

Thursday, April 29th was our 8 year anniversary! What an adventurous 8 years it has been! I jotted down a timeline of our lives thus far. I'm going to include it here as a fun, quick record.

April 29, 2006: Wedding day! In the Timpanogos Temple in American Fork, UT. After 3 weeks rent free in my old house (my parents were trying to sell it so we just stayed there until it sold) we moved to our first little apartment in Clearfield, UT.
Sep. 2006: Moved to Rexburg, ID for school
Feb. 2007: Tyler was born!
March 2007: Moved from a duplex to a basement apartment still in Rexburg
Dec. 2008: We both graduate from BYU-Idaho and move to Houston, TX. Kenny starts his first job at URS
Feb. 2009: Brynlee was born
April 2009: URS moves us to Illinois
Dec. 2010: Madison Lynn is born
May 2011: Move back to Houston
July 2011: Once again move with URS to Cleveland, OH
Feb. 2012: Same company moves us to Anchorage, AK in temporary housing--3 weeks later Kelsey is born!
March 2012: Move into house (with a 4 day old baby)
November 2012: Kenny switches companies, now works for Udelhoven at BP
Aug. 2013: Miscarriage and move out of house
Oct. 2013: Move into new duplex. First time owning
April 2014: Move out of duplex into house in Wasilla

Whew! That's a lot of moving and babies :). We had a funny conversation as we were getting ready to pack up for this last move:
Kenny: Why are you always pregnant when we are moving?
Me: Why are we always moving?
K: I think the better question is, why are you always pregnant?
Me: Maybe we should settle down in both areas

I am truly grateful for an eternal marriage. I really love Kenny and the life we've built together. I feel like we are in a really good place right now. Things haven't always been smooth sailing, it's been tough at times. I was an immature 19 year old when we got married for heaven's sake! But regardless of how old you are when you get married, I think it's going to be hard. The struggle and beauty of marriage is that two very different people have to come together and overcome a lot of "natural man" tendencies (like selfishness) and put the other person first. It's where we learn to truly love and to develop those characteristics that will refine us and help us become celestial beings. I am so grateful that Kenny is willing to put up with me and my many flaws. He never gives up on me and loves me even when I'm rotten and awful to him. We have been through a lot together and I am excited for our future as well.  Plus, we make stinkin cute children if I do say so myself ;).

We weren't able to celebrate much this year, but that's okay. (Hawaii last year more than makes up for it!)
Tyler, being the avid holiday-celebrator that he is, made us a couple darling signs, then had the girls color on a cardboard moving box (we have a lot of those) for us too. Kenny didn't get home till around 8, but I let the kids stay up late and eat chocolate cake and celebrate with us.

My gift to Kenny 

Kenny also brought home 2 dozen roses. I guess because one just wouldn't be enough for this man :)

Settling In

This was written May 3rd, I just was waiting to put some pictures with it before posting, then forgot...

It's late Saturday night and I would like to go to sleep early because I am sick and need the rest. But Kenny is still finishing re-staining the deck, and I need to cut his hair so badly we can't go another day (because it would turn into another week...). But I need to catch up on here anyway, so I suppose it's a good thing.

Tonight marks 1 week that we've been in our new home here in Wasilla. I really, really love it here. The weather has been absolutely perfect. We cannot get enough of being outside, and that's good for the whole family. I watch the sun turn red and finally set every night from my bedroom window. You can really see a difference daily in the leaves on the trees--they are coming back! I have a big jacuzzi tub in our master bathroom that Kenny cleaned for me so I could soak my tired, pregnant body and I love him for that. There is more than enough room for all of us, which cuts down on my stress level because we're not all constantly on top of each other all day long. The backyard is big and we've got our trampoline set up again, which provides hours and hours of play for the kids each day. I love our neighborhood, and that we are at the end of a cul-de-sac and the kids ride their bikes and run around to their heart's content without me worrying that the second I turn my head one of them will be hit by a car (like I used to). I really have never loved a house like I love this one, and I just feel so very blessed that it's ours.

Of course, it's not all perfect. We're still getting things bought and set up. I do laundry at the laundromat because we don't yet have a washer and dryer. We haven't got blinds put up in the windows yet and the sun is up really early and sets really late already, so we have resorted to using our cardboard moving boxes and taping them up in the windows each night. It's like a really white-trash advertisement for Home Depot :). (That's where we got the boxes) And of course, sickness hit our family during all this moving shenanigans. The kids all started getting colds, then I woke up to Kelsey's awful cough on Monday night and said "Oh shoot--that's croup." It's so distinctive. Anyway a couple days of taking care of her and the other kids, it caught up to me and now I've got it bad too. I can't get through the day without many doses of Tylenol, and I'm just praying it doesn't turn into a sinus infection or something.

The kids have adjusted really quickly though. Kelsey was having the hardest time with all the changes, of course, being the youngest. For example, she was waking up at all hours of the night again, and wanting to sleep with us a lot. We had been playing musical beds with all the kids for weeks with uncle Andy staying with us, and then moving. But now she's finally settled into her new room (she still shares with the other 2 girls) and sleeping in the same spot each night. Also, she wouldn't want to leave my side for a while. No matter what I was doing, she just would hang out right by me. But now she'll go off and play with everyone else again, and just come back and check in with me periodically to get a hug and kiss, or just say hi. So I know she's feeling better about life again.

For me, moving is always a good opportunity to see mine and Kenny's different strengths and weaknesses, and how we can come together as a team to get the job done. We usually (or always) have different priorities of what we think should be done first, but we work together well. We've moved so many times now too, that we kind of know what the other will do and carry on. There have been many times in the last couple weeks especially where I stop and watch him while he's in the middle of working on something and feel a lot of gratitude for him and what he does for our family. I love him and his hard work ethic. He doesn't let stress bog him down like it does me, he just keeps chugging along and doesn't stop till he accomplishes what he needs to.

4/21: The only things we left unpacked were chalk, bubbles, and their bikes.  Madison colored this and told me she wished her hair really looked like that. Really big, and really colorful! 

4/25: We got our keys!!!

4/25: While waiting for the carpets to get cleaned (before moving in) we ran errands to utility offices, and then played at the park. They absolutely love this spinning thing. They all get so giddy and drunk-like from spinning so fast for so long. It cracks me up to hear them laughing and not even able to hold their heads up 

4/26: Our last breakfast in our house with no furniture :). We had slept on mattresses on the floor the night before. They thought this was like a fun picnic!

One nice thing about the laundromat is I get our whole week's worth of laundry done in about an hour! Then I fold it all at once. Brynlee likes to lay in the warm clothes :)

Kelsey was "helping" me mow the lawn. :) Thanks to Bryn for taking this

A few more details I want to add:
On Thursday, April 24th Kenny picked up the U-Haul. Sam and Andy came over and helped load it all up. The next night, Friday they took that load out to our new house and unloaded it. Then came back and put in what was left (except for a few things like my mattress :) I don't like sleeping on the floor at this stage of pregnancy.) We could not have done this move without the Westons and Sponsellers. Carmin made dinner for us adults and took my kids so I could work too. Shalee also watched the kids a couple times while their husbands were gone helping us. Then Carmin and Shasta just showed up to help on Saturday because they knew I was there cleaning (Shalee had my kids too!). We are so grateful for good family friends who help us out so much. We felt very humbled and full of love for them.
Friday we got the keys to the house, and Saturday the 26th we moved in, and spent our first night there. We had to go back on Monday to take care of some last minute cleaning things; mostly just the garage and spraying the kids' chalk off the driveway, the deck, filling in nail holes, sealing off the attic, etc. And Kenny was there almost every night after work showing it to people. But we were blessed to be able to rent it out within the next week, so for that we are very grateful.

Mom

To my fabulous mother, Colleen, who drank out of mason jars for decades before it became cool.
Who sewed us all matching Easter and Christmas dresses every year.
Who made our Prom and Homecoming dresses and Halloween costumes long before Pinterest was around to steal ideas from.
Who never put herself first and lived a selfless life of service.
Who raised 8 children and mothered many other children along the way.
Who moved a large family all around the world several times and never complained. You have always been a pillar of strength and taught me to "put my big girl panties on" and that I can do hard things.
Who taught us to live the gospel and always do what's right.
Who cut our hair, grew a garden, canned food, kept an immaculate house, drove us to all of our music lessons and sports activities, and never stopped believing in us.
Who not only gave me life, but sacrificed everything in her own life to make ours wonderful.
Who continues to be an incredible example of a righteous mother in Zion to her growing posterity of 12 grandkids and counting.

I love you more than I can say. The longer I am a mother, the more I recognize and appreciate all you did for me, and all of us kids. I am in awe of your life and the woman that you are. I feel so blessed to call you mother for eternity.
All my love,
Lindsay

The Return of the Parks

After a pretty mild winter, we are actually having what I think is spring! We are loving all the sunshine and spend a lot of time outdoors (when I'm not packing). We feel so lucky to live in walking distance from an awesome park, and get down there almost every single day. We're really going to miss being so close to such a fantastic place. But I'm sure we'll find other places we love in Wasilla. 

After playing on the playground for a while, we always walk on the nice trails for a bit and end up throwing rocks and sticks in the creek under the bridge. They like to find trees that have been chewed down by beavers, look for moose, (for a couple days there was one way too close to the trail for my liking, but she didn't seem to mind all the people) and find other treasures of the forest :). Life is pretty good when you are a kid playing outside.

The first butterfly we saw this year :)

Easter 2014

Saturday Easter egg hunt at the park with several families from the ward. Might I just add this is our third Easter in Alaska, but the first without snow!! It was fabulous!! We just traded the snow for mud...

This is what the park looked like. They found eggs among either mud or thorny bushes. But candy is worth any cost :) 

Easter Sunday 4/20

My heart is so full when I look at these pictures. I love these kids so stinkin much!

And now some blurry phone pictures of our fabulous Easter dinner at the Sponsellers. Andy and Shalee and kids were there too, along with Joshua and Shasta Peterson, and Bro. Later. After the yummy dinner we all created tomb scenes out of play-dough and stuff. It was a really fun activity and I think we'll have to steal that tradition. The kids loved it. We loved having our last weekend in Anchorage to visit with friends and family, especially on this beautiful Easter holiday.

Andy carrying around 5 kids at once. 

I'm so bummed at out how blurry this picture turned out! I'm really going to miss living so close to Carmin. I decided we needed a picture together because of all the many things we've done together and neither of us are in a picture together. She is such a dear friend, and cousin.

The End of an Era

Well we did it. We qualified as the worst parents ever and got rid of our dog, Jake. We had tried selling him before, with an ad on Craigslist. But he was just so mean to people that came to see him, that nobody wanted him! But we just couldn't do it anymore. For a number of reasons, he had to go. It was pure heartbreak for my little boy, and I started crying every time I looked at him. It was (is) a very real loss for him. Jake was his best buddy. Once Kenny left with him, I just held Tyler and let him cry for a while. He said that even though he understood, he was still really sad. I've never felt so awful. Because I know that if I was an animal loving woman, he would have stayed. If I loved dogs and felt like all the extra money and work was worth it, we could have kept him. I apologized to Tyler and took full responsibility, I just can't do it anymore. I tried really hard for 9 months to be a dog person. But oh the extra stress and work is just not worth it. Maybe if the kids were older, or maybe if we didn't live in Alaska and could have an outside dog, or maybe a dog that was kinder to our own children and other people, or maybe a dog that didn't shed SOO badly, or maybe a million other things. But the point is, it wasn't working. I have to admit that I haven't missed him for a single minute. It's been very nice having that huge weight lifted off me. I know a lot of people will judge me (us) for this decision, but please not too harshly.
(We tried to get a picture of Jake with the girls, but he wouldn't stay by them. He only liked Tyler.)

A few other unrelated things...

Here's a funny capture of Kelsey pouting. Oh the attitude!!!

 We had a few more passes to use up at the gymnastics open gym before we move. That's Madison in mid-air :).

Also Madi stylin at dinner the other night

We enjoyed seeing the lunar eclipse a couple nights ago. It wasn't hard for us to see it because it was only 11 p.m. Pretty cool stuff

Patience is a Virtue (which I lack)

I think that I am given lots of opportunities to practice patience daily. But I obviously am not getting it very well because it's something I struggle with constantly. Lately it's mostly just little things that add up to make me a snippy mommy. 

Like people spilling their drinks a bajillion times a day. 

The excess toilet paper that is strewn around the bathroom floors or just thrown away when they pull off too much!! 

Or how the snow is starting to melt, so half of our backyard is now exposed with pure mud since we didn't have time to get a yard in before winter last year. We still have another month to go before we can put in a yard, but the extra laundry and daily mud and dirt that is smeared all over my back door and tracked into the house by well-meaning kids and a stupid dog, make me very impatient with trying to keep it clean. But Jake just paws at the door all the time and whines to come in which makes me feel like a big mean-y. But he's a dog, so it's totally cool that he's outside, right? I'm not that mean, right? Right?!

Also from the dog, he's shedding A LOT since it's warming up. I try to keep him outside ALL day, but there's still dog hair that collects in the corners and under the couches and sticks to clothes and drives me up the wall!!! 

Anybody want a dog? 

We're waiting to close, so I've been packing a lot. But I'm sort of at a stand-still because I can't very well pack up everything if we're going to live here for another week or two. So we're waiting. But whenever I have something big looming in the near-future, I feel like I don't know how to live normally anymore. I know that doesn't make any sense, but I'm just in this state of limbo and on-the-verge of a big change. 

I'm not trying to sound so negative. Yesterday was one of those days where it all caught up to me. But really life is so good and we are all healthy and happy, with so much to be thankful for. Of course there's little daily things that can seem really big if I let them. But the big picture, the important things...we're doing great.

We are most definitely enjoying all the extra light. It's quite a noticeable change with how much is added on each day and week. Our driveway is almost ice-free, and the sidewalk on the main road going to our park is melted now too which makes going on walks and pushing strollers so much easier. We are getting so antsy for summer and warm weather!!!

We are sort of in this rhythm where we do cleaning, school work, and activities in the morning, then try to spend the afternoons outside or running errands. It takes all day to warm up so that's the best time to be outside is late afternoon and evening.

 Building elaborate forts in the living room

 Tyler stays busy in the afternoons with practicing his hammering skills on extra pieces from when our fence was put in last year. He told me he's building a windmill, and is going to need some more wood. :) I'm sure our neighbors hate us for the pounding that goes on, but it makes him so happy and he feels like a man doing important building work.

One thing I love about homeschooling is the no-rush mornings. They can sit on the couch and read for as long as they're interested and that makes me happy.

Kelsey is quite obsessed with these "sparkle shoes" that she has recently grown into.

 I found this idea online to get shelf liner and those plastic yarn needles for kids to practice sewing. The holes are big and they loved it! Madison was a little young and lost interest after 30 seconds. But Tyler and Brynlee finished their creations. Ty made a monster face (of course) and Brynlee did a perfect rectangle. This is definitely something we'll keep doing.

 T & B enjoy "cooking" with the mud. They pretend they're adding in all sorts of ingredients with each shovel full of mud and stir it up with the board. Keeps them busy :)